


don't we love it now?

by callunavulgari



Series: Dark Month Collection [87]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: 31 Days Of Halloween, Alternate Universe - Nightmare Before Christmas Fusion, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 02:24:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21245957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: When Kairi is eleven years old, she gets lost in the woods. In them, she finds a door. It’s an old door, with rickety grey wood and a huge smiling Jack-O-Lantern on it. There are other doors, but this is the one that she chooses. That makes it important.It is two weeks before Christmas and her grandmother died three days ago.So she does what any child wracked with grief and uncertainty would do. She runs away.





	don't we love it now?

**Author's Note:**

> Day 30 of October. Prompts were: bones, temptation, hex, “every second is another heart beat wasted,” blood, fall. I think my plan for today was originally Teen Wolf, but Dearly Beloved came on and I couldn't stop myself. I'm working on Day 29 next because we went to see Swan Lake last night, and while it was gorgeous, we got back way too late for me to write anything. And with 29 out of 31 written, I might as well shoot for doing all of them.

When Kairi is eleven years old, she gets lost in the woods. In them, she finds a door. It’s an old door, with rickety grey wood and a huge smiling Jack-O-Lantern on it. There are other doors, but this is the one that she chooses. That makes it important.

It is two weeks before Christmas and her grandmother died three days ago.

So she does what any child wracked with grief and uncertainty would do. She runs away.

Inside the door, there is another wood. This one isn’t the same as the one she’d left. There are no picture perfect pine trees with branches heavily weighted with snow. The only snow left is what’s still clinging to her boots. These trees look as old as the door had, bare and grey, their limbs twisting and turning every which way. There is a fog rising up from the ground, and dead leaves crunch underfoot as she walks.

The farther she goes from her little clearing, the deeper the sense of unease becomes. She feels like every dark shadow hides a creature planning on gobbling her up. The mist gets thicker, and after a while, she starts to think that maybe she should turn back.

And then, she finds him.

His face gleams white in the moonlight, the hollows of his eyes seeming to stare right through her.

“Well, hello there,” he says, and she blinks in surprise.

“Hello,” she says, because it’s the polite thing to do, even when the person speaking to you seems to be a talking skeleton.

“How did you get in here?” he asks, stooping to peer at her. His suit is striped and the bowtie around his neck looks like a bat.

“Through a door,” she tells him.

He hums in thought, one bony finger tapping his chin. “Well, then. We should probably get you back to it. Children shouldn’t wander through strange doors.”

She shakes her head, a frown pulling at the corners of her lips. “I don’t want to go back. Please, don’t make me go back.”

He looks at her a little longer, head cocked. Those long, spindly fingers made of ivory bone continue to drum against his chin. Each time they come in contact with the bone there, they make a little tap.

He sighs, long and heavy, and then straightens, all of his bones clicking at once. “Well, I suppose there’s no helping it then. You’ll have to come back with me.”

He offers her his hand.

Once she’s taken it, he sets them off down the path. He hums as he walks, a nonsense song that seems spooky and cheerful at once. “What’s your name, little girl?” he asks her.

“Kairi,” she says.

“Kairi,” he muses, his mouth shaping the word like he’s tasting it. “I’m Jack. Tell me, Kairi, do you get scared easily?”

She shakes her head, and he makes a quiet, pleased sound, then offers her a bony smile. “Good.”

She is thirteen years old when she meets Sora and Riku. Being the adopted daughter of the Pumpkin King made her strange, and her humanity made her even stranger. Most of the kids her age either didn't talk to her, or spent their time trying to scare her.

But Kairi kept true to her word. She didn’t scare easy.

Growing up in Halloweentown is a strange, lonely experience. She has to be careful what she eats or drinks, because so many things here are poison to her. The vampires are drawn to her, the witches dislike her, and many are envious simply because of who took her in.

Kairi grows slowly. Her legs are too short, and she’s too skinny. She has a half-starved, waifish look about her that makes her blend in a little, but makes Sally tut to herself at night when she’s tucking her in.

“You have to eat more,” she says. “You’re not like us.”

Kairi knows. She doesn’t have funny teeth or a tail. She can’t pull off an arm only to sew it back later, and she can’t stomach swimming in the murky green water of the fountain like some kids can. She’s different, and that’s sad, but Jack and Sally are kind to her. She likes Halloweentown, likes the joy when Halloween comes and how even now, two years later, she can still see a new monster and be awestruck all over again.

And then, she meets them.

It’s a full moon night a couple days before Halloween, and she’s walking Zero past the cemetary when she sees them.

Sora is one of the local vampire kids. He’s got a greying face and bright blue eyes, two sharp fangs poking out past his upper lip. But she likes his laugh, so she pauses a little longer than she usually would to watch as he tosses the other boy a disembodied head.

Riku is a witch. Everyone says so, even though he doesn’t look much like the witches that she’s met. His hair is long and silver, his skin white as the china doll she used to have back home, and there are no warts in sight.

He’s the one who notices her first, blinking his strange green eyes her way. For a moment, she thinks he won’t say anything, but then he smiles, and tosses her the head.

She catches it, more out of surprise than anything. The flesh is cold and squishy under her fingers, and there’s bristly black hair erupting out of its nose and ears. It blinks at her and asks, “Well, aren’t you going to throw me back?”

Kairi throws it back, casting a lingering glance over her shoulder at where Zero is sniffing at some shrubbery before she takes a step into the graveyard.

They’re both staring at her. Sora with something resembling confusion and Riku with a small smirk adorning his face. She thinks that his face just might be like that, that he’s always smirking.

He tosses the head to Sora, who fumbles it. All three of them watch as the head goes tumbling away, cursing them every time it bounces on the cobblestones.

She breaks the silence by giggling, covering her mouth to muffle the sound.

“Hi,” Riku says, offering her a hand. “I’m Riku.”

Kairi doesn’t tell him that she knows that, because that’s rude. Instead, she takes his hand in hers and shakes it. “Kairi.”

His lips quirk higher and apparently he is rude enough, because he just nods and says, “I know. This is Sora. He won’t eat you.”

Sora shoots him a glare.

“I could if I wanted to,” he bites back hotly. Then he looks at her, and sighs, sheepishly admitting, “But he’s right. I won’t.”

“I didn’t think you would,” she says, because it’s true. Jack would skin him alive.

There’s a strange lull, before Sora perks back up and asks, “Do you want to play catch with us? We’re trying to see how many times we can get him to say a bad word.”

Kairi casts another look over her shoulder, then shrugs. “Sure.”

She isn’t alone anymore after that. Sora and Riku aren’t the scariest monsters in Halloweentown, but they have enough of an added presence that most of the kids don’t bother her anymore, and the few who do keep it up don’t do it for long, not after the first time that Riku and Sora are there waiting for them in the dark.

She keeps growing slowly, and though she stays skinny, she manages to put on muscle. Enough so she can keep up when they decide to go traipsing through the woods late at night or when they decide to race with the mermen in the lake.

By the time she’s sixteen, she feels like she’s always known them. They go everywhere together. Do everything together.

And then, on a night like any other, they stumble across a door. It’s a familiar door, just as rickety as she remembers, only this time, there’s a big Christmas tree across it, the star at the top seeming to glitter.

Kairi spends a long time staring at it, touching her hand to the worn wood. It feels almost warm.

“Is that where you came from?” Sora asks her, tucking his chin over her shoulder. His breath is cool against her ear.

She nods, because she doesn’t trust quite trust her voice. Her throat feels tight, and she’s afraid that if she says anything, she’ll start crying.

“Do you want to go back?” Riku asks. He’s standing off to one side, leaning his weight against the trunk of a large bare-branched tree. The branches are always bare here. She kind of misses the snow. The carols. The warmth of a fireplace hearth and her grandmother’s hand in her hair.

She shakes her head, and when she can speak, says, “My home isn’t there anymore. It’s here. With you.”

Riku gives her a look, his eyes shrewd and hooded. As she watches, he pushes off of the tree and crosses the distance between them, leaves crunching underfoot. He stops next to them, so close that she could touch, if she wanted. Sora has gone very still at her back.

“With us?” Riku murmurs. He touches her hair, gently, right where it curls to meet her chin.

She nods again, because time in this town has made her brave. Or maybe she’s always been brave, and she just didn’t know it until she stepped through a doorway into another world. When Riku’s hand moves to slide up the curve of her jaw, she tips her face into the warmth of his palm.

Sora takes a step back and away, so Kairi reaches back and catches hold of his wrist, drawing him back towards them.

“Kairi?” he asks, his eyes a little wide. The blue is startling against the grey of his cheekbones.

“She said with us, idiot,” Riku teases, gently, reaching out and catching hold of Sora’s other hand. He squeezes it gently.

“Oh,” he goes, soft and startled. “Are you sure?”

She hums quietly to herself, and smiles. “Every second is another heart beat wasted. I’ve been waiting long enough.”

Sora is the first to kiss her, his fangs pricking at her lips, but she can feel Riku at her back, his hand curving around her waist. And when Sora’s pulled back, his eyes round and shiny, Riku stoops to kiss her too.

They’re good kisses. Small things, seeds planted in the soil to flourish and grow.

And when Riku is done kissing her and moves to kiss Sora next, the old wooden door that leads to a world she used to know watches silently as it happens, firmly shut.


End file.
